“The Banggai cardinalfish can currently only be found in the region of the Banggai Islands - larval dispersion does not take place because the eggs are hatched in the mouth of the males. When they are released, the young, already relatively large fish immediately hide between the spines of the diadem sea urchins to prevent them from being swept away by the currents. This extremely beautiful fish has recently become popular among aquarists, which could lead to too many of them being captured from an already limited population. [...] The European public aquariums brought together under the EUAC (European Union of Aquarium Curators) have decided to set up a breeding programme for this species to meet market demand without having to remove them from their natural environment. The specific reproduction method of this species makes breeding them quite easy as opposed to most other species of sea creature. [...] The laws governing aquarist activities have little to do with species but are rather of a sanitary nature. By following logical and often regulatory hygiene rules, professionals must ensure that they don’t run the risk of contributing to the formation of exotic pathogens or bacteria multi-resistant to antibiotics. The problem that must be tackled by the fishkeeping trade is the risk of importing pathogens in the transport water of the fish, which could cause epizootic diseases if transferred to local fish and could eventually even lead to illnesses in humans.

FISHKEEPING AND THE TRADE OF ORNAMENTAL FISHMichel HIGNETTE

Claire Decet (Born in 1978 in Thionville (Fr). Lives and works in Hettange-Grande (fr)) always works with the raw material that is within reach, in direct view, in her immediate environment. This latest series of paintings called Aquariums only fully makes sense if we place it under the blue skies of eternally sunny Los Angeles, a city on the edge of the desert and with several ocean harbours, a neon-lit city increasingly confronted with water supply problems, a city well-known by the artist as she recently took up artistic residency there. Perhaps the French artist refers to this imagery of sun and make-believe in her paintings of numerous aquariums, but it could also be a reference to the artificial nature of the glass box, acting as superficial scenery ready to welcome the ornamental fish that may have been caught in this corner of the world and are subsequently placed in an artificial environment. The parallel with Los Angeles jumps out at us. After all, this city reveals itself as a scene, a really loud background, against which human life bustles about like in a bowl. By linking the electric blue aquarium with this city crackling with neon light, Claire Decet also points the finger at the very idle nature of this glass box, which hypnotises us and instantly renders us into an other-worldly meditative state. The most important aim of all is to represent the simple aspect, the unremarkable, the superficial, this fake layer that captures our eyes. Then, by means of a soft, deliberately academic pictorial gesture, this flat surface of pretence is put into perspective to provide it with depth and a critical distance.This series of paintings clearly reflects the light and poetic as well as anxious and melancholic practice of the French artists. This is incorporated into a collection of subjects that are constantly linked to human activity putting a strain on nature (her series on Production centres for nuclear electricity consists of paintings of nuclear plants against bright blue skies, with a few nuances created by the poetry of the clouds of smoke emitted by the chimneys) as well as on the confinement of living things - whether the animals in this series or plants in her series of sculptures called Collection, which shows a small garden of withered plants. This latest exhibition, called DRAINS TO OCEAN, acts as a reminder of this corpus of issues. This well-known sentence in Los Angeles encourages the inhabitants of the city to not leave or throw their litter on the public highway so as to keep the oceans clean, despite the fact that the fish destined for aquariums will unfortunately never return to them.